FTR, this isn’t something I’m advocating for. It’s something I’ve seen promoted lately on social media by both men and (ironically) women. Personally, I just want women to have the right to choose and be done with it.
Ok. In this hypothetical world, the right to choose is now amended in the Constitution. So getting it off the books is going to be really hard. The drawback; men now have a right to opt out of any responsibility to a pregnancy. In order for a man to have any responsibility, he must first sign a form and submit it. Once submitted, there is no backing out.
So aa would be mother can have her partner sign these papers before getting pregnant and feel reasonably secure.
Do you accept:
Yes. I think it’s a great idea.
I “accept” but only because I think this is the best solution we’re ever going to get.
I would accept for the sole reason it enshrines the woman’s right to choose into the Constitution. I would further advocate for a welfare system whereby all children have their needs met through to adulthood by the state (with appropriate progressive income and wealth taxes to fund), as I believe that would be a superior and more equitable system than the lottery children are born into now.
I also do not consider that to be at odds with your hypothetical at all. Men can opt out of caring for their individual offspring all they want, but not out of paying into the collective according to their means.
This would just end child support as a concept. It’d be bad enough if they can opt out, but having it be opt-in basically means no one would opt in. If you were financially supporting them voluntarily, surely you’d be willing to do it without needing a court order.
@ASL_v2.0’s proposition would seem to be the only way to make this workable. But then, if there is no financial responsibility on the father anymore, then there arguably isn’t any reason to need the opt-in (or opt-out).
Only if we make the entire community responsible for all children born. You get born here, society will feed you, house you, and send you to school, every citizen gets that automatically.
I voted, No, and for multiple reasons. One, while getting a constitutional amendment is a great idea, we’ve seen how different states went waaaaaay out of the way to restrict and criminalize abortion (I’m looking at you TX) even before Roe was overturned. So, nope, still won’t prevent those who oppose any form of abortion and the politicians who cater to them from making life difficult for women.
Two, as @What_Exit points out, it wouldn’t happen with the parties involved in our current political climate. Not to fight the hypothetical, but a circumstance in which we could get such an amendment passed is one in which the circumstances have changed so much that there has to be some other factors involved.
Which brings me to my third point, this hypothetical strikes me as something from a “men’s rights” group (not accusing you @Grrr, but I don’t know where you heard it from). They want to opt out for all male responsibility, but let’s be clear, outside of various flavors of rape, it takes two to tango, but only one biologically has to bear (pun intended) any responsibilities. To let the other opt out, even from the already tenuous responsibilities they have in many jurisdictions, seems to be giving away far too much.
And that leaves out all the other issues with unequal power in various relationships, impairment (so many threads on this), dishonesty, and claims that ‘all this paperwork is killing the mood’. Pending any sort of superApp in which all parties fill out a contract prior to any relationships that are immediately notarized and filed (which could be a cool thread), it just gives more scummy (and clueless) guys a way to avoid responsibility.
I’m saying if two people have sex, both of them should accept the possible consequences equally.
I don’t feel what you wrote is what pro-lifers are pushing for. They want to ban all abortions. I don’t feel they have any consensus view on people having sex.
They’re calling this move the “financial abortion”. The thinking is that if women have a right to dodge the consequences of having a child, then men should also have that right.
I disagree with this theory for many reasons, but the principle reason is that every single unwanted pregnancy is caused by a man choosing to irresponsibly ejaculate in a vagina because it enhances his pleasure to do so. If that stopped, then unwanted pregnancy would stop.
Men already have a foolproof way to dodge child support. Just stop ejaculating in vaginas when we don’t want kids. If we don’t take advantage of that, then we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
These two issues (parental responsibility and abortion rights) have nothing to do with each other. I don’t quite understand why these two things come together in this hypothetical.
I think an opt-in approach to parental responsibility for men would be a horrible horrible foundation for society.
I just want to say I’m with you on this, and I get it, and I reject the suggestion that men should have the ability to opt out of parental support in the real world, but… in the hypothetical, where there is actually a metaphysical certainty that a constitutional amendment would be adopted protecting the right to choose for people who become pregnant, and it’s not just some wank? I would absolutely endorse it. Because the right to choose overrides my distaste for MRA and, as already stated, I see a way to do an end-run around the opt out provision. FWIW, I would support universal taxpayer-funded child support even if the right to choose were unaffected.
I voted option 2. For me, abortion rights are so important that I’m open to a lot of crazy ideas right now. I don’t see this scenario as plausible, but whatever. Men have been getting away with not paying child support since forever. I’m not thrilled about legitimizing it, but it’s a trade I would make. I would hope, in this scenario, the man is giving up his parental rights when he refuses child support, and we can get to work on providing better government support to single mothers after this?
That too. And even the ones who might try to meet obligations will often fall short owing to circumstances.
ETA: And let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that the ones who opt-in to child support under the provisions of this hypothetical amendment won’t continue to default on child support as so many already do. As I see it, this amendment (unlikely as it is to ever actually pass, but for the hypothetical) changes virtually nothing except that it protects the right to choose. So really what’s the down side?
